Established by Céline and Heiner Bastian in 1989, the gallery has been directed by Aeneas Bastian since 2016. BASTIAN specialises in western artists of the 20th Century such as Pablo Picasso, Jean Dubuffet, as well as German and American post-war artists who the gallery had long-standing personal relationships with, including Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol. The gallery publishes numerous exhibition catalogues, artist monographs and catalogues raisonnés.

For further details on the artworks offered for sale by BASTIAN in the Eye Viewing Room please make an enquiry below.

Regarded as one of the masters of colour field painting, Ulrich Erben’s early works - informed by his interaction with landscapes, having spent years in Italy and Germany’s Lower Rhine region - gave way to an artistic practice rooted in exploring the relationships between colour, light, tone and harmony. Erben’s founding interest in landscape plays a crucial role in the understanding of his later, more reductive works which are similarly contextual. The landscape is a “vessel of memory” for the changing world around it, recent works experience various lives through multiple interpretations.

Ulrich Erben currently lives and works in Dusseldorf. His work is held in various public collections including the Akademie der Künste, Berlin; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; The Daimler Art Collection, Stuttgart and Berlin; Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart; Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf; Städtische Galerie Im Lenbachhaus, Munich; and Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara, Italy, among others.

As the war progressed Hofmann’s theories on art became more sought after. Lee Krasner introduced Hofmann to the critic Clement Greenberg in 1938 and he attended Hofmann’s lectures at the Art Students League. Greenberg’s early writings on the subject of abstraction owe plenty to Hofmann’s very concise theories on plasticity and the relationship between colour and form. Hofmann’s essays on the subject were eventually published in 1948 in a lavishly illustrated book entitled 'Search for the Real, and Other Essays'. In this his concept of push and pull are given full voice. The idea promotes abstraction not as an abandonment of rules but of understanding the balance of form and colour as they exist within the canvas. Each element has an effect – either a push or a pull – on the one next to it; as such the composition is built up as a series of relationships that when complete allow for the comprehension of depth. In this regard Hofmann echoes another of his great heroes, Cezanne; but whereas Cezanne’s modelling depended on planes abutting each other Hofmann recognised that two, or more, gestures in isolation on a canvas had an effect on each other. Here, the title 'Rendezvous' playfully hints at the ambiguous relationship these forms can have. In the painting two yellow orbs are in the act of confronting each other but are blocked by the top layer of dark paint which separates them. Applying the standard rules of colour theory, the yellow comes forward in the composition but is subsequently sent back by the overlapping layer of black and navy paint hence producing flatness within the painting.In an ironic sense 1944 was a breakthrough year for Hofmann, he had been visited by Peggy Guggenheim, again at the insistence of Krasner, the year before and she offered him his first solo exhibition in New York. Whilst he was a prominent and respected figure, who at this point had run his own school and influenced so much that had happened in New York for the last 10 years, he was only now being given a debut exhibition. It was long overdue but from 7 March – 8 April Hofmann presented his work on its own and earnt strong reviews in the New York Times, ARTnews and Arts Digest. This would result in many more exhibitions.

Regarded as one of the masters of colour field painting, Ulrich Erben’s early works - informed by his interaction with landscapes, having spent years in Italy and Germany’s Lower Rhine region - gave way to an artistic practice rooted in exploring the relationships between colour, light, tone and harmony. Erben’s founding interest in landscape plays a crucial role in the understanding of his later, more reductive works which are similarly contextual. The landscape is a “vessel of memory” for the changing world around it, recent works experience various lives through multiple interpretations.

Ulrich Erben currently lives and works in Dusseldorf. His work is held in various public collections including the Akademie der Künste, Berlin; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; The Daimler Art Collection, Stuttgart and Berlin; Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Stuttgart; Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf; Städtische Galerie Im Lenbachhaus, Munich; and Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara, Italy, among others.